


fall in the hands of a greater unknown (let me be there)

by ratbandaid



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Family, Fate & Destiny, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29805729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratbandaid/pseuds/ratbandaid
Summary: “What were you doing?” Felix asks.“Hm? Just trying to make this line here a little longer.” His mother smiles sadly. “Looks like you inherited this short line from your mama.”“Why?” Felix looks at his palm and paws at his mother’s hand. Just as she said, the palm line closest to her thumb looks like his, not quite following the thumb muscle down to their wrists. However, hers is still longer than his.But Felix can’t see the problem with it. It’s just a line on his hand, and it’s just a line on her hand. Are they supposed to go that low? Does it really matter? What does it mean?She averts her gaze. “Well, I read that the longer that line is, the longer your life is said to be.”------Since his childhood, Felix has been told he's going to die young.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a very self-indulgent piece based (VERY loosely lol) on my own experience with palm lines/readings! idk how accurate the palm line stuff is going to be because I'm just using what I heard as a kid so excuse any inaccuracies c:
> 
> ~~and yes,,, i am starting another wip when i have other ones i'm working on/stuck on,,, orz~~
> 
> enjoy!

By this time in the night, the Fraldarius Manor tends to be quiet. Quiet, but not entirely silent.

Felix’s father reads a book in his favorite armchair in the living room, just a couple feet from the crackling flames of the fireplace. Occasionally, the sound of his fingers grazing the pages and the sound of the pages turning can be heard. Enraptured in his book, he pays little attention to his family lying on the large rug before the fireplace, though he seems to enjoy their presence if the smile that he wears when he glances up to see his wife and sons is anything to go off of.

Felix’s mother hums softly as she cuts a few apples into the cute bunny shapes that Felix likes. The blade sinking into the crisp skin and flesh of the apple when she carves the bunnies and the dull clatter of the pieces of apple onto a plate accompany her humming. It isn’t a song that Felix recognizes, but his mother enjoys watching the local opera shows when she isn’t feeling too weak to make the trip to the theater. He assumes she picked up yet another song from there.

Glenn tends to his sword diligently, hunched over his precious weapon. Stray strands of his long, dark hair flop forward, coming free from his loose ponytail. As he polishes his sword clean, the smell of the oil thick in the air, he huffs air up at his bangs, though it’s a futile effort to clear his vision since his hair flops back in place not long after. When Felix giggles at him, Glenn only flashes him a smile and does it again, a little more exaggeratedly.

Felix, curled up on his favorite pillow with his own sword a few feet away from when he was play-sparring with Glenn, watches his family with a small smile and contented eyes that droop with sleep. The room is so silent, so warm, so relaxing, that Felix just about falls asleep. He lets out a snore, and the sound is enough to jolt Felix awake, earning a soft chuckle from his mother and Glenn.

He smiles.

It’s nights like these that Felix loves—when his father and Glenn aren’t too busy training or tending to adult matters about the land or when his mother isn’t too busy being fussed over by the live-in doctors, so they can spend time together. He doesn’t care that they’re not even playing a game together or that Father isn’t reading him a story. He just likes that they’re all together.

While Felix carefully watches Glenn’s movements as he finishes wiping away the last of the debris from his sword, a smooth back-and-forth with the rag over the shining blade, their mother sets the plate of apple slices between them.

“There you go,” she says. “It took a little longer than I would have liked, but they’re all bunnies, Felix. Just how you like them.” She reaches over to run a hand through his hair and smiles, the light of the fireplace making her features glow softly.

Felix beams back at her and sits up, reaching for the apples. He picks the smallest apple-bunny first, admiring the precisely-cut V-shaped peel as the ears, and he bites into it, savoring the crunch and the immediate flood of flavor that follows. Glenn stands up to go wash his hands, setting his sword aside in its sheath. When he returns, he takes his seat at the fireplace again and reaches for a few slices for himself too.

Their mother clicks her tongue and grabs Glenn’s hand, looking down at it with a frown. “Glenn! Your hand is all rough.” She runs her thumb over the calluses of his palm and clicks her tongue again. “Look at this.”

“This is a good thing,” Glenn retorts without a beat. He smiles over at Felix. “It means my training is paying off.”

Felix looks back at his hands. Glenn is much older than he is, so his hands are bigger with longer, slimmer fingers. Felix’s hands are still small and kind of pudgy, and when Glenn takes him into town, holding his hand so he doesn’t get lost, his hands are swallowed by Glenn’s entirely. But he’s been training hard. He’s been getting a few blisters and calluses too. They hurt, especially when he peels at the hardened skin, but it means he’s getting better, like Glenn said, so Felix doesn’t mind.

Amidst the regular calluses, Felix finds a new blister on his left hand from training earlier on in the day. Excited at his find, he shows his palms off to Glenn. “Me too, me too! Look at my hands!”

Glenn pretends to inspect them deeply, leaning in and turning Felix’s hand at all sorts of angles. He nods sagely and pats Felix’s hand. “Your hands are looking stronger already, Fe!” Felix puffs out his chest in pride, making Glenn laugh and reach over to ruffle his hair.

“Glenn, don’t teach him to be so uncouth.” Their mother sighs, but despite the slight scorn lacing her voice, she bears no true anger in her expression. “You are a knight, but you are also a noble. It’d be nice if you could keep your hands a little more kempt. And if you could teach your brother to do the same.”

Glenn shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, Mother. I’m sure that there aren’t very many people who will look too closely at my hands. Even if I had dainty, noble hands, they’d just get messed up anyway because of my duties as a knight.”

“And because you keep getting into fights with your fellow knights,” Felix’s father cuts in from his seat without looking up from his book. Pride graces the small smile he wears on his face. Felix craves that same kind

“Nothing wrong with that, Father. It’s all just training.” Glenn turns his gaze to Felix and grins. “Hey, Felix, you know that no one’s beat your big brother just yet?”

Of course Felix knows. When even Father and the other knights talk so highly of Glenn, how can Felix _not_ know? Glenn is the best knight in all of Faerghus. He’s the strongest and the fastest, and he’s everything that Felix aspires to be.

“Yet!” Felix smiles, his eyes alight with determination. “But I’ll beat you, Glenn! When I’m older! Watch me!”

Glenn laughs. “That so? Well, little brother, I won’t go easy on you, so train hard!”

Felix nods. “I will!”

He casts his glance over at his mother, who is still holding onto Glenn’s hand and looking down at it. Glenn seems unperturbed, using his other hand to eat the apples. Felix is expecting her to release his hand, but she instead peers at his palm and even holds it up to the light of the fire warming the living room. She squints her eyes.

“What are you doing, Mama?” Felix asks. He stares at Glenn’s palms too, hoping to see whatever is interesting his mother, but he finds nothing but the same old blisters, calluses, scars.

She smiles. “I’ve been reading about something called palm reading. You can tell someone’s future by looking at their palms.” She traces a crease with her finger. “See this line, Felix? See how this crosses right here? It means that Glenn will be very wealthy in the future.”

Glenn playfully rolls his eyes and tugs his hand away. “Mother, I don’t care about money. Just as long as I can be a knight, I’m content.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” She chuckles, though there’s a strange look in her eyes. She looks to Felix. “Do you want me to read yours too?”

Felix nods ecstatically and thrusts out his hand to her. She hums. When she traces the creases of his palms, it tickles a little and draws a laugh from Felix.

“Stay still, sweetheart. I’m trying to read your palm, remember?”

“Tickles!” Felix replies, but he tries his best to stay still anyway.

“It says here that you’ll be very happy in the future! Just like the meaning of your name—Felix. Happy. Exciting, isn’t it?”

Felix beams. “I’m already happy!” he tells her with a great big grin, the kind that she says makes him look bright as the sun, but she isn’t looking at him, humming noncommittally in reply.

Felix’s mother is still looking at his palm, still wearing that strange look from when she read Glenn’s palm. A crease forms between her eyebrows, and the ends of her lips dip down into a frown. She runs her thumbnail over a crease of Felix’s palm, the crease closest to his own thumb. She traces up and down the line, and when she reaches the bottommost part of the palm line, she gently sinks her nail down and drags her thumbnail towards his wrist.

“Ow! That hurts, Mama!”

“Ah, sorry, sweetie,” she muses softly, a faraway look in her eyes. She rubs the pad of her thumb over the palm line in little circles, as if to coax the pain away.

“What were you doing?” Felix asks.

“Hm? Just trying to make this line here a little longer.” His mother smiles sadly. “Looks like you inherited this short line from your mama.”

“Why?” Felix looks at his palm and paws at his mother’s hand. Just as she said, the palm line closest to her thumb looks like his, not quite following the thumb muscle down to their wrists. However, hers is still longer than his.

But Felix can’t see the problem with it. It’s just a line on his hand, and it’s just a line on her hand. Are they _supposed_ to go that low? Does it really matter? What does it mean?

“What does it mean, Mother?” Glenn asks, looking down at his own palm. “Mine’s short too.”

She averts her gaze. “Well, I read that the longer that line is, the longer your life is said to be.”

Felix blinks. “Then… If it’s short…” He looks down at his hand. The short crease of his palm, a predetermined fate, stares back at him impartially, definitively.

_Stupid line!_ he tells himself. _Grow longer! For me and Glenn and Mama! Because if you don’t… If you don’t…!_

“Aw, no, no, no! Shh, it’s okay, Fe! No need to cry!”

Felix doesn’t realize he’s crying until his mother pulls him into her arms with a small chuckle. Then and only then does he start to cry harder.

He doesn’t want to live a short life, not when he still needs to beat his brother and hear that wonderful praise from his father too. He wants to live a long, happy life with his family around him, just as they are right now. They still need to eat apples and stay warm together by the fireplace and tell stories for years and years to come. What’s he supposed to do if he dies young?

And what about Glenn and Mother? Glenn’s work as a knight is nowhere near complete, even if he’s got a high status on him. Mother still has much to do too, tending to the garden outside her window that she loves so much and helping Father deal with the Fraldarius territory.

And what about Father? Is his line short too? Is he going to be all alone?

The more Felix thinks, the more he cries.

“Alright, don’t scare Felix too much,” says Felix’s father, sticking a bookmark in his book and coming to join them at the fireplace. He scoops Felix out of his mother’s arms with a small chuckle. “Look, Felix. Look at your father’s hand.”

Felix looks at the hand that his father has outstretched. His line seems quite short too.

Glenn butts in, “That’s right. Father’s line is short. But he’s an old man. Right, Fe?”

Felix’s father shoots Glenn a look, a look so rife with exasperation that it only Glenn laugh. Felix’s mother smiles too. Her smile, soft and healing, eases the flat look on Felix’s father’s face from Glenn’s slight, and it steadies Felix’s aching heart just a little.

Felix sniffles and places his own tiny hand on his father’s wrist, tracing the line with his index finger. Father is much, much older than Felix and Glenn. And Mother is older too. So maybe the palm reading isn’t right.

“Does this mean I won’t be happy in the future?”

Felix’s mother sighs, the smile still present on her face. “Maybe I didn’t read the book right about the life line,” she says, reaching forward to cradle his face in her hand and wipe away the tears with her thumb, “but I know deep, _deep_ in my heart that you’ll be happy in the future.”

Felix smiles, the last of his tears fading from his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

Felix flops down into the snow with a small _oof_ , snow flying up into the air to accommodate his little frame. He looks up into sky, admiring how the dark skies above are sprinkled with little, soft snowflakes that dance down towards him. A few get caught on his eyelashes, a few on the tip of his red nose. The snow around him is bitingly cold, but he feels strangely comfortable. He could nap here if he wanted to.

Well, he could have napped there if Sylvain hadn’t jumped onto the pile of snow beside him, spraying him with snow.

Felix laughs and pushes the snow off himself, peering over at Sylvain, face-down in the snow. Sylvain sits up, shakes his head to get the snow out of his bright red hair, and grins at Felix.

The snow around Felix is bitingly cold, but he feels strangely warm.

Sylvain stands back up. “Okay, we shouldn’t lie down in the snow too long. We might catch a cold. And plus, it's gonna be a pain to get all this snow off us if we want to go back inside.” He holds out his gloved hand to Felix, and Felix takes it, letting his friend pull him to his feet.

Felix swipes his hands down his back. The snow, once stuck to his thick, fur-lined coat, flutters to the ground and meets the ground with a soft crunch. Sylvain does the same.

“Should we go in?” Felix asks. “I think I wanna play inside now.”

“Sure. Let’s go.” Sylvain flashes Felix a small grin. “Race you.” Before what Sylvain says has time to click in Felix’s brain, Sylvain takes off towards the Fraldarius Manor.

“H-hey! No fair!”

It really isn’t fair. Sylvain’s taller, his legs longer. Felix has to work harder to cover the same amount of distance. And the snow makes it harder to run, every step sinking into the snow beneath their feet.

“S-Sylvain! Wait!”

Felix watches as Sylvain’s figure slowly starts to grow smaller and smaller in the distance. Felix pushes himself, his little heart pounding. His short, little huffs form into wispy clouds of water vapor in the cold air almost tauntingly.

“Sylvain! Stop!”

The dark, snowy skies overhead feel like they’re getting darker. Is there more snow coming down now? The maid at Fraldarius Manor _did_ say that a snowstorm might be coming and had warned them to come in a little early. Is Felix going to get caught in a snowstorm all alone?

He reaches out for Sylvain, as if he could grab Sylvain and pull him back from such a distance. “Sylvain!” he calls, his voice wobbling. He sniffles. “Sylvain!”

Luckily, Sylvain hears the distress in his voice this time around and stops in his tracks, giving Felix time to catch up.

“Felix, are you okay?” Sylvain asks immediately, his hands hovering above Felix’s shoulders anxiously. “Did something happen?”

“Don’t leave me alone like that, Sylvain!” Felix blurts out at him as he nears him, tears bubbling up in his eyes. “I don’t like it!” His balled-up fists tremble at his sides.

Sylvain rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry, Felix. I thought it’d be fun to make it a race.” He pauses. “But now that I think about it, it probably would be more fun to go back together.” He offers his hand to Felix. “We can talk together on the way back. It’s less lonely like that, don’t you think?” Sylvain smiles.

Felix nods and takes Sylvain’s hand, squeezing it a little. “Let’s go home, Sylvie.”

The flurry of snow, the darkening skies, and the wintry winds are unforgiving and scary, but with Sylvain by his side, Felix feels invincible. Feels warm despite the cold. Feels happier.

Felix smiles. “Do you want hot cocoa when we get back? Glenn taught me how to make some, and I can make it really good!”

Sylvain hums, a smile on his face. “Yeah. Sounds fun, Felix.”

Back at the manor, Felix and Sylvain shed their coats and gloves, soaked from the melted snow, and they sit in front of the fireplace to warm up, sharing a fluffy blanket and holding the cups of hot cocoa that Felix happily brewed for them.

“My hands are all pruney,” Sylvain muses, setting his mug aside and looking down at his hands. He holds his hands out to the fireplace.

Felix puts his mug down and examines his hands. The pads of his fingers are wrinkly and cold and a little wet from playing in the snow for so long. Even though they wore gloves, the melted snow must have seeped in through the fabric and soaked their hands.

“Mine are too!”

Sylvain laughs. “We have old people’s hands!”

Felix laughs too, but his eyes drift from his fingertips to his palm and get caught on the short palm line his mother had fussed about a while ago—the ‘life line,’ as she had called it. His mother still fusses about Felix’s life line, occasionally trying to deepen that line in his palm with her thumbnail with desperation in her eyes and worry in the crease between her eyebrows.

“Sylvain, show me your hand. I wanna see something.”

Sylvain blinks. “Sure.” He lets Felix take his hand.

Sylvain’s life line is short too, ending right around the same place where Felix’s and Glenn’s and their mother’s end.

It’s reassuring—Sylvain’s line is short too. It’s crushing—Sylvain might not live long either, and he’ll end up leaving Felix behind.

Felix’s chest is a rush of mixed feelings. Melancholy and relief and stress and fear. And when Felix remembers Sylvain’s scary older brother and the obvious, terrible way that he treats Sylvain, even though Sylvain denies anything bad happening, his heart nearly stops in his chest.

“Is something wrong?” Sylvain prompts quietly. “You look… sad.”

Felix swallows hard and grips Sylvain’s hand tightly in his own. “We’re gonna die young,” he whispers.

Sylvain stares. “What?”

Felix’s breath hitches in his breath, his chest growing tight. “We… The lines…” A lump forms in his throat.

“Lines?” Sylvain squeezes Felix’s hand, giving him a concerned look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Fe.”

Felix steadies himself. “My mama taught me about palm reading, and she said this one means how long you’re gonna live.” Felix points at Sylvain’s life line. “And if it’s short, you won’t live long, and…”

Sylvain looks unmoved.

“Aren’t you scared?” Felix feels his shoulders tense, feels the onslaught of tears coming on. “I have a short one too, and I don’t wanna die young…” Just admitting that his life line predicts a short life for him makes a shudder run through him.

Felix is only five. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen when he dies. He can’t even imagine what life is going to be like when he’s older. Is he going to get married? Is he going to be a knight like Glenn? Will he finally get to _beat_ Glenn?

And how come Sylvain’s so uninterested? How can someone come face-to-face with the fact that they’re going to die one day, possibly soon, and be so calm?

It’s almost like he’s thought about this kind of thing before.

Sylvain, still unfazed, instead puts on a small smile. “C’mon, Fe. Don’t tell me you actually believe that?”

“H-huh?”

Sylvain pulls his hand away from Felix and reaches for Felix’s mug to hand it to him. “I don’t think you know this, Fe, but a couple of lines on your hands can’t tell you how long you live.” Sylvain picks up his own mug and takes a sip. “As long as you eat good and keep yourself healthy, I’m sure you’ll live long.”

Felix pouts. “But…”

“Hey, if it helps, I saw short lines on my grandma’s hands too, and she’s really old.” Sylvain knocks his shoulder gently into Felix’s and smiles. “So don’t worry, okay? We’ll live until we’re gross, old men, and we’ll have fun all the way there!” 

“But what about when we die?”

Sylvain frowns. “What about it?”

“It’ll be lonely.” Felix wipes at his eyes. Tears line his eyes but don’t threaten to fall. “If you die before me, I think I’ll be really lonely and sad. And if I die before you, you might feel the same…”

Sylvain hums. “That’s true.” He takes a thoughtful sip of his hot cocoa. “Then how about this, then? We can die at the same time.”

Felix’s eyes widen. "We can do that?" he whispers, and it's like Sylvain has shown him a whole new world, like Sylvain has breathed life into even death itself. And just like that, Felix feels like he isn't scared of death anymore.

Sylvain shrugs. "Why not? Besides, this way, neither one of us is left behind, right?”

Felix nods, entirely enraptured with this concept that Sylvain introduced to him. Most of his worries start to melt away, like the snow that once clung to their coats and gloves. Instead of being drenched in the cold that his fears left him in, he’s starting to feel warm with hope, with some sort of _light._

“And—and we can die together, right? I’ll be here, next to you, and you’ll be here too.”

“That’s right.”

“Then, promise me. Promise me that we’ll die together.” Felix holds out his hand, pinky outstretched. Felix feels his hand shake a little as his fear gnaws away at his insides. He expects to see some sort of hesitance on Sylvain’s end, some sort of embarrassment or uncertainty. After hearing all these reassuring things, Felix doesn’t know how he could handle it if Sylvain didn’t follow through, didn’t want to be happy with him. 

But Sylvain doesn’t miss a beat, hooking his pinky with Felix’s. “Promise,” he tells Felix with an earnest smile, pressing his forehead gently against Felix’s, and what was left of Felix’s concerns finally, _finally_ melt away. Warmth floods Felix as he puts on a smile of his own.

“I’ll be right there with you in the end, Felix. I promise.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Then promise me. Promise me that we'll die together._

_I'll be right there in with you in the end, Felix._ _I promise._

_Warmth. Comfort. Joy._

Felix’s eyes flutter open.

A sigh escapes his lips as the last dregs of his dream, the dream of his and Sylvain’s promise from all those years ago, gently slip from his mind and return to his memories where they belong. Another night with another wistful, bittersweet dream.

It’s pitch black outside of the window, though it is a nice, clear night with the moon and the stars in clear view. It must still be late at night then.

It’s another one of those nights, it seems, where Felix can’t quite sleep. The house is silent. Not quiet—silent. It seems like even the owls outside aren’t hooting, like not even the crickets are chirping. Silence, like the cloak of night, has fallen over the home and refuses to let up until morning time.

Felix sits up and cradles his head in his hands. He’s exhausted, but he can’t sleep. And if he manages to calm his racing and dark thoughts enough to fall asleep again, it won’t long before he wakes up again, feeling disoriented and even worse. He might as well stay awake.

It’s all because of Glenn.

When their mother died from her poor health a few years ago, from the disease that had been gradually taking her away since Felix was born, Glenn had been there to comfort him. He was hurting too, but Glenn had decided that he would be there for Felix. Glenn distracted him from his sadness, had cheered him up with jokes and stories and training, had held him in his arms when the bittersweet, recurring memories of Mother’s touch and her sweet smiles and her soft voice were just too much to handle. Glenn had coaxed him to sleep, had made him eat. Felix wishes that Glenn were here to comfort him again, to hold him and assure him that everything will be okay.

But now Glenn can’t. 

Because he is dead.

No, he isn’t just dead. He’d been brutally, mercilessly murdered in that attack in Duscur, all while protecting Dimitri, that _boar_ of a prince.

It’s been roughly a year since Glenn’s death, since the Goddess had cruelly pried Glenn’s bright soul from this life and left Felix in the shadow he’d left behind. Felix’s life had completely fallen apart after that. He’d lost sleep, catching short scraps of sleep when nightmares and his overactive brain wouldn’t wake him. He’d lost his appetite, eating only when forced to. He’d lost friends, having stopped talking to most of them.

But by this point, he’s slowly, _slowly_ piecing himself together.

He’s taken to studying and training himself to the point of collapsing to avoid thinking about Glenn, to surpass what he thinks Glenn would have been like to spar, to step out of Glenn’s overbearing shadows and to step away from his father’s expectations of a perfect carbon copy of Glenn. He’s starting to eat regular meals, though sometimes it’s still hard to sit at the dining room table and find both the seats to his left and right empty. He’s even responding when his father speaks to him, though more often than not, their conversation ends up clipped, angry, and with a door slammed in his father’s face.

He’s far from okay. He won’t be there for a while. What’s important is that he’s trying his best to recover from Glenn’s death and that he’s taking care of himself.

At least, that’s what Sylvain tells him.

Sylvain—it’s hard for Felix to think about him too, though for a completely different reason than why it’s hard to think about Glenn.

Thinking about Sylvain and the way that Sylvain had clung to him at Glenn’s funeral, the way that Sylvain was hesitant to leave him alone, the way that Sylvain begged Felix to open his bedroom door and let him at least see his face while Felix was isolating himself from the world confuses Felix and leaves him wanting _more_ , somehow.

He craves Sylvain’s kind words, his strong and warm arms wrapped tightly around him, his true smile, the kind that he hardly gives out nowadays. He wants to hear Sylvain use that soft voice, the kind he uses when he’s being serious and when he’s thrown aside his skirt-chasing façade.

But why? Why is he thinking of Sylvain holding him? Of Sylvain whispering sweet reassurances, his face just a hair’s breadth away? Of Sylvain’s warm, brown eyes watching him with interest and understanding and _joy_ while his soft-looking lips quirk up into a playful smile?

And why in the world does Sylvain care so much about him? When Felix lashed out at Dimitri and Ingrid after Glenn’s death, when Felix lashed out at his own father, they all backed away cautiously and gave him space, only checking in on him when he looked like he was feeling less explosive. When he lashed out at Sylvain, Sylvain had waited until Felix had finished hurling insults at him at the top of his lungs before pulling Felix into a tight hug. He hadn’t let go even when Felix thrashed around and tried to swat at him with his hands. And when Felix finally, _finally_ sunk into the hug, sobbing openly, Sylvain had only held on tighter, his own warm tears dripping onto Felix’s shoulders.

Why has Sylvain been so involved in his life when everyone else had been perfectly content with letting him figure things out on his own? Even now, Sylvain regularly writes letters checking on him, telling him anecdotes and his own daily life’s happenings. In those letters, he implores him to come ‘hang out with him and a few lovely ladies,’ though he does add that he ‘wouldn’t mind if it’s just us too, you know.’

Felix has an idea as to why Sylvain’s worried. He suspects that Sylvain’s worried that Glenn’s death will be the straw that broke the camel’s back. He suspects that Sylvain fears grief will take Felix to an early grave too.

Grief won’t. Losing Mother hurt like hell; losing Glenn felt like death. But Felix promised himself years ago that he would live long to spite his palm lines, and he promised himself and Sylvain that they would die together. Even if Sylvain may not give a second thought to their childhood promise, Felix keeps it close to his heart and guards it with everything he’s got.

Yet, he’s curious too.

“Were you lying to me, Sylvain?” Felix’s voice is hoarse, low, ragged. He sounds tired, like he’s been screaming all night long in his sleep. “Were you lying to me to make me happy that day with that promise?”

Felix would _really_ prefer not to think of the past. It dredges up painful memories.

It reminds him of how his mother’s palm readings tie into her and Glenn’s deaths. Shorter life lines, shorter life spans. It hurts endlessly to think about, so Felix tries not to think about it. Still, he thinks about his own short life line.

Then he thinks about Sylvain. Thinks about that day, a memory coated in warmth and carefree joy. Thinks about that promise.

Felix scoffs to himself. He’s stupid for thinking that Sylvain would remember such a stupid promise and for thinking that Sylvain would connect his life to Felix’s in such a whim.

 _He’s always been a liar,_ Felix muses. _Always wearing that stupid smile and flirting like he has nothing to lose. Always saying he’s fine even though he’s weighed down by the Gautier lineage._

Yet, when Felix recalls the genuine smile on Sylvain’s face on that day, the feeling of Sylvain’s pinky hooked around his own, the heartfelt promise itself, Felix feels a warmth in his chest that he hasn’t felt in forever.

And as Felix slowly pulls himself out of the hole that Glenn’s death had sunk him into, he realizes that it’s not just the promise that brings warmth into his chest. It’s Sylvain’s carefully written letters, faintly smelling of that cologne he wears. It’s his beaming smile, the little dimples forming in his cheeks. It’s his golden brown eyes and vibrant red hair, his honeyed words and his true, almost _reserved_ nature—

No. It’s not just those things. It’s _all_ of Sylvain.

Complicated and confusing feelings, all tied to Sylvain, bloom and bloom like the violent blossoms born from firecrackers in Felix’s chest until he feels like he can hardly breathe. They fill him with floaty, warm feelings, with embarrassingly soft thoughts and words he would never dare to dare; but at the same time, they strike his heart with fear—with words like _forbidden_ and _ruin_ and _abandon,_ with feelings like _disgust_ and _anguish_ and _frustration_. They make it hard for him to be near Sylvain, especially when Sylvain is so keen on being _so damn close_ to him. Like when he throws his arm around Felix’s shoulders or when he hooks his chin over Felix’s shoulder as he looks down at the sword Felix is tending to, Sylvain’s chest pressed up gently against Felix’s back.

Felix feels like a fool chasing after his incomprehensible feelings relating to Sylvain, the same way he used to chase fireflies with Glenn when they were visiting faraway relatives, where the land was warm and rife with long, green grasses and plentiful crops year-round. Felix would trip and stumble over his feet as he desperately ran back and forth, swinging his cupped hands in the air in a vain attempt to catch in his bare hands the lively fireflies that flickered against the clear night sky. Yet, their glow had always drawn him in and kept him going, even when he was winded or when he had scraped his knees from tripping—or even when Glenn grew tired and called him back. Felix would only stop once he’d caught at least one in his little hands or once they’d disappeared from his view, fading into the night sky.

Every time these pesky feelings spark up in his chest, Felix comes closer to understanding them and catching them in his hands, chasing their golden hue intently. Every time Sylvain makes his heart skip or when he says something that makes Felix’s mind wander to life around him as something _more_ than friends, Felix grows that much closer to the feelings that flutter about and light up his heart, his chest, his _existence._ And every time he understands just a little more about how he feels for Sylvain, the more he grows fearful, dread pooling in the pits of his stomach.

By the time Felix had understood and properly labeled for how he feels for Sylvain, he’d caught his feelings in his hands, watched them glow brilliantly through the cracks between his fingers. He’d felt their glow in his palms, felt them flutter about and gently graze the flesh of his palms, as if patiently awaiting freedom once again. Yes, Felix had finally caught his seemingly incomprehensible feelings in his hands and grown to understand them wholeheartedly.

And then he crushed them, grinding his hands together desperately, in an attempt to escape the bleak future that he knew would follow if he admitted these feelings aloud. The light once warming his hands had flickered pitifully and immediately went out as Felix violently mashed his palms together and tried to forget all about this.

Yet, his feelings, a radiant gold smeared on his palms like the evidence for a crime he’d committed, stain his palms and never truly disappear as Felix hoped they would.


	4. Chapter 4

Garreg Mach is just the distraction that Felix needs—the bustling atmosphere with a constant murmur of the students’ chatter, the chores, the seemingly endless number of people to spar and train with. He meets new people, whether he wants to or not, and he reunites with his friends that he’d cut off all that time ago. Though every day is more or less the same, going to class and training, it’s enough to keep Felix’s mind away from Glenn.

And it’s almost enough to keep his mind off his palm lines.

It’s stupid. It’s just as Sylvain said all those years ago. How is he going to let a bunch of wrinkles on his palm tell him when he’s going to die? It’s simply a part of his body, just like the little mole beneath Glenn’s right eye or the faint, _faint_ freckles along Sylvain’s cheeks and across the bridge of his nose. Those lines mean nothing, especially if they won’t aid him in battle.

There’s a still childish part of him that fearfully clings to this idea, though.

 _Mother died, and her line wasn’t as long as Father’s,_ that childish voice claims. _And Glenn died young too. What’s going to happen to me?_

For the most part, Felix can shake away these thoughts. After all, he spends much of his time training, and he doesn’t have time to reminisce on his palm lines unless they’re directly related to the sword that is swung at him.

But the palm lines always seem to come around and get stuck in his brain. Situations where he has to inevitably look at his hand just seem to pop up, and his eyes will always wander to his palm lines, taking his mind with them.

Like when Annette doodles something on his palm in class, telling him that it’s a sign of a new club that she’s making with Mercedes or telling him it’s an important due date he should remember. Like when Felix trains too hard in his efforts to forget about his conflicting feelings of Glenn— _I’m going to move on from him_ and _I still have to beat him_ and _I can appease Father with my training_ and _I don’t need to appease anyone but myself—_ and a painful new blister forms on his hand.

The blisters are worst. Not because they are physically painful, but because they are _emotionally_ painful, dragging along years and years of repressed memories tied to his mother and his brother and even _Sylvain._ Dreams of being a knight and promises to live long together and melancholic looks and warm and comfortable nights—

It’s enough to wind Felix and almost take his legs out from beneath him.

Almost enough to make his eyes heat up with the tears of pent-up frustration and longing and _pain._

Felix can’t stand it. When these thoughts hit, he wraps his hand thoroughly in bandages just to avoid looking at it and so it won’t hinder his training when he goes to try to take his mind off things again.

The bandages attract too much attention from others. Mercedes will approach him and ask him if he needs medical assistance. The professors will ask how he’s training to possibly find a technique that hurts him less or to find a mistake in his form and correct it. And his friends worry about it.

Especially Sylvain. It seems that he’s too nosy to keep his thoughts to himself.

“What’s with the bandages?” Sylvain asks one day while they’re eating lunch together. It’s one of the rarer times when Sylvain isn’t being hauled away by the girls to eat together. Usually, they’re accompanied by Ingrid, Dimitri, and Dedue, but this time, they’re alone.

Felix feels weird. He can’t bring himself to keep his gaze off of Sylvain, and his heart is stuttering in his chest. Maybe it’s really been that long since he’s spent time with just Sylvain. Maybe his brain is just having trouble comprehending that there’s people missing.

(Felix briefly remembers endless nights of chasing and chasing, remembers a glow shining through the cracks between his hands and his fingers, remembers the glow covering his hands. 

He shuts those thoughts out of his head.)

“Blisters,” he responds bluntly, “from training.”

Sylvain winces. “Ouch. Doesn’t that make training harder?” He doesn’t wait for a reply. “Ever think about getting them properly looked at? It’d be easier to go to one of our healers, you know.”

Then Sylvain grins stupidly, the kind of grin that prepares Felix to hear something completely stupid. “Hey, why not go to Mercedes? She could heal your hand—and your heart. What a beauty.”

A spike of ire, of exasperation, peaks in Felix’s body. “Do you _ever_ stop talking about girls?” He sighs. “You talk about my blisters one second and girls the next. Scatterbrain.”

Sylvain laughs. “Well, sorry. I can’t keep my mind off lovely ladies when they’re everywhere I look. It’s all I can think about.” He winks. “You understand, don’t you?”

And for some reason, Felix finds himself hurting. Not in his sore muscles or his blister-bearing hands or even his head for having to put up with the headache that is Sylvain Jose Gautier when he’s on his spiel about girls again. No, something hurts deep inside of him, a pain that runs bone-deep.

It’s the realization that Felix will never be able to capture Sylvain’s attention the same way these girls—girls that Sylvain genuinely cares little about—do. He’s had this revelation for a while, but seeing him with that goofy smile on his face and with his inability to keep a single train of thought on a topic without veering off towards women just makes that thought truly drive itself home and make itself known.

 _No,_ Felix wants to say, anger burning his tongue. _I don’t understand. Because I don’t think about girls. I never thought about them. I think about_ you _._

Instead, Felix keeps his mouth shut and tries to maintain a neutral expression.

(He can feel himself glaring.)

Sylvain must not notice anything off about Felix, if his playful tone is anything to go off of. “What? Am I supposed to have more to say about your hand?” he teases. He takes Felix’s hand and pretends to inspect it thoughtfully. “Wow, your hand is smaller than I thought. Your sleeves just about swallow it up.” He chuckles. “It’s almost cute.” After a beat, Sylvain adds, “Y’know, kind of like a girl’s.”

 _Cute._ The word echoes over and over in Felix's head. The contact from Sylvain's hand against his own lingers.

Felix pulls his hand away, like he’s been burned. He _feels_ like he’s burning up, both his face and the hand that Sylvain so gently caressed. Meanwhile, his head is running amok with all sorts of nonsensical fantasies; his heart is pounding in his chest.

Yet, deep down, he knows that he can’t have Sylvain. What a cruel fate.

 _At least I’ll be dead soon,_ Felix tells himself as he pushes out of his chair abruptly. _I’ll die sometime soon—like Mother told me, like that stupid palm line has always been telling me—so I won’t have to think about Sylvain anymore._

Felix storms off towards the training room without another word.

-

As their professor dismisses their class for the day, Felix packs up his belongings and moves to leave. Just as he gets to the door, Sylvain steps out in front of him.

“Hey, Felix. Got a second?” Sylvain grins.

A nervous energy radiates off of him. Unease starts to build in Felix, but he keeps his expression unchanged.

 _What kind of stupid favor is he going to ask of me?_ Felix wonders. He grimaces at the possibility that Sylvain wants to bring him out to lunch with a bunch of girls.

“Make it quick. I need to get to the training room before it gets too crowded.”

Sylvain’s smile falters. “Well, it’s about the other day. I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to make fun of your hands.”

Felix stares.

“I didn’t think it’d hurt you so much. So, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Sylvain shifts uncomfortably under Felix’s gaze.

“You’re so stupid.”

Sylvain blinks.

“I wasn’t upset about that. I wasn’t upset about anything.”

They both know it’s a lie. Felix is nothing like Sylvain when it comes to lying.

“What? Don’t lie to me like that. C’mon, Fe. We’re friends, aren’t we?” Sylvain asks softly, cocking his head a little with his lips pulled down in a small frown. He looks like a pitiful puppy, wearing such a sorrowful expression. “You know you can trust me with anything, right?”

Felix is almost tempted to just tell him why he left, to shed these uncomfortable feelings off of him and wipes his hands clean of this guilt and frustration. He’s tempted to melt into Sylvain’s arms like he’s a kid again; he’s tempted to let Sylvain’s comforting arms around him help him forget about his mother’s passing and the strange thoughts about his palm lines that she left him with, about Glenn’s death and the legacy he left behind for him to fill in, about all his suffocating feelings about the _boar_ and Sylvain and everything else.

Almost.

Felix bottles up those feelings again for when he’s in the training room.

(He imagines snatching his feelings from the air again, though this time they are not a bright and happy color. They are dark and move slowly. When Felix tries to crush them in his hands, they’re sharp and jagged and crunch loudly. They dig into his hands and leave behind a darker kind of residue, though it isn’t enough to cover up the bright gold from the feelings tied to Sylvain.

He bleeds.)

“Your flirting was grating and atrocious,” Felix deadpans. “I didn’t want to be around you when you were being like that.”

“Flirting?” Sylvain pauses, but then he bursts into laughter. “Right, right! Sorry.” Sylvain lets out a sigh, wearing a grin. “I’ll be more subtle for you.” Sylvain chuckles again. “I knew you were easily embarrassed, but—”

Felix prickles, his cheeks feeling hot. “What? No! Not with me, you fool. I meant the way you flirt with girls. Don’t bring that buffoonery up around me.”

“Hm? Oh. Sure.” Sylvain’s still wearing that stupid grin. He clearly doesn’t buy what Felix is saying. “Anyway, you’re heading out to train, right? I’ll leave you to it, then.” Sylvain backs away. “See you at lunch, yeah?” He waves and turns to leave.

“Wait. Sylvain.”

“Yeah?”

Felix wishes he hadn’t called out for Sylvain. Why had he called out for him? What was he about to say? Was he about to mindlessly let himself slip up? To casually ruin his friendship with one of the only people he has left in this world? He should have his impulsive heart locked away forever.

Well, at least he can put Sylvain to use.

“I want to try a new technique I read about. Come train with me.”

Sylvain smiles a little. “Sure, Fe. Anything for you.”


	5. Chapter 5

Felix bursts out monastery corridor and out onto the courtyard, his heart pounding so hard he can feel it in his hands and his head. The monastery nun walking by gives him a wary look but quickly scurries out of his way when he starts towards the grassy courtyard. His eyes dart around the courtyard until he finds a familiar head of red hair. Felix storms over to him.

“Sylvain!” he barks.

Sylvain, sitting on a bench around girls, spots Felix and brightens. “Oh, hey, Felix!” He excuses himself from the girls and meets him halfway across the courtyard, smiling like nothing’s wrong.

Smiling like Felix hadn’t heard some of the worst news since Glenn’s death.

Felix tightens his hands into fists at his sides. “What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?”

“Right now?” Sylvain raises an eyebrow and gestures at the girls at the bench. “I was—”

“No! I _know_ what you’re doing now. I meant, _why_ are you transferring into the Black Eagle House?” Felix feels like he’s baring his teeth like a feral animal, like Dimitri does when no one’s around. “What is going on in your head, if there’s anything in there at all?”

"Oh," is all Sylvain says. He gives the girls a look. "Sorry, ladies. Can you leave me and Felix here? This seems pretty serious. But I promise we'll catch up and spend lots of time together later." Sylvain smiles sweetly at them.

The girls scowl at Felix as they walk off together.

Then Sylvain turns his full attention back to Felix, his expression falling serious. 

“You’re just going to leave behind your _home?_ That boar prince—Dimitri? Ingrid? _Me?_ For what? Some new professor?” Felix grits his teeth and lets out a grunt. “Is it worth it? Leaving behind everything and everyone you’ve ever known for someone you _just_ met? Just because you think she's pretty?”

Sylvain blinks. “Whoa, Fe. Calm down. It’s not that bad. I promise.”

“It _is_. Do you know why?”

Sylvain doesn’t reply.

“Because you didn’t even _bother_ to tell me. I thought we were friends, Sylvain.” Felix lets out a huff. “‘We’re friends, aren’t we? You know you can trust me with anything, right?’ Aren’t these words that _you_ said to _me_?”

Sylvain’s eyes widen, as if recalling the words he had said months ago. Then he winces. “Well, I’ve been meaning to, but—”

“But you didn’t. And I had to find out from Ingrid.”

Sylvain sighs. “Okay, enough, Felix. Calm down. It’s not as bad as you think it is.” Before Felix can interrupt him, Sylvain holds up a hand, a gesture asking him to wait, and he continues when Felix bites back his anger. “I’m still here at Garreg Mach. We can still hang out and eat lunch together. And if you want, I can probably make time to come watch you train.”

Felix feels his blood boil. “I don’t _care_ about training! This isn’t about training! You _know_ it’s not about training!” He can’t bring himself to lower his voice. He doesn’t care that people walking by can probably hear him and are probably staring him.

"Felix…” Sylvain looks surprised, but whatever that blockhead is thinking probably isn’t anywhere near the distress that Felix is experiencing.

Sylvain’s leaving their House. Sylvain won’t be around to spend time with him. To eat meals with him. To train with him.

But it’s not just about switching Houses. It runs deeper than that.

What about their promise to die together? What about all those years they spent together? Through thick and thin? How is Felix supposed to keep an eye on him and protect him when he’s switching to another class? How is he supposed to keep Sylvain safe and keep him alive so they can fulfill their promise when he’s going somewhere that Felix isn’t allowed to go? Somewhere that Felix doesn’t want to go?

How is he going to keep Sylvain to himself when he’s trying so hard to leave?

 _I don’t want you to leave us!_ Felix wants to scream. _I don’t want you to leave_ me _! Stay here, by my side! Just like you promised! I need you!_

But he bites down the urge to say those foolish, sentimental statements. He takes in a deep breath and narrows his eyes.

“No. You know what? Fine. Go. We’ll be just fine without you anyway. If anything, we'll be better off this way.” Felix turns his back to Sylvain and starts to head back to his room.

“Felix? Hey, wait! Don’t just walk away!”

Sylvain hurries from behind him and tries to block his path. “Come on. Let’s not end on bad terms.” He gives Felix a sad look. “I know you’re not happy about this, but I just think that it’ll benefit me more to be there.”

“Bull. Shit. You’re transferring over because of the new professor.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” Felix pushes past Sylvain. “And I don’t care.”

Felix doesn’t give Sylvain another chance to catch up with him. He takes off towards the dorms, glaring at anyone in his way. Behind him, he hears Sylvain call out for him again, his voice growing more and more distant with every step he takes. Sylvain’s footsteps after him grow quieter too.

And by the time Felix rounds the corner, climbs the stairs, and finally enters his dorm room, slamming the door behind him, it’s silent. It’s too silent.

Has Sylvain given up on him?

A part of Felix wishes that Sylvain would come to the door, knock and beg him to come out like he would when Felix was grieving Glenn. He wishes that Sylvain would be stubborn for him again, that Sylvain would hold him tight and make him another promise. A promise to switch back. Or at least a promise to keep up with him despite being in a different class.

But Sylvain won’t.

Felix flops onto his bed and stares up at the ceiling. Slowly, he raises his hands to look at them too, at the bandages wrapped tightly around his hand. He gently peels them back as his thoughts race.

Sylvain is still on the monastery grounds, but he’ll make new friends. He’s just like that. Charismatic, kind, fun. Smart, handsome, _perfect_. He’ll meld into that group and forget all about the years and years that he spent with Ingrid and Felix and Dimitri. And so desperate to escape his family and his Crest, after graduation, Sylvain may just take up life in Adrestia—settle down with a nice girl, start a gentler, happier Gautier family, shed away the heavy duties and expectations of the Crest.

And forget all about Felix and that promise they made.

Felix stares down at his palm. His latest blisters have long-healed, but Felix can’t stand to stare at his palm lines.

 _Sylvain, you’re going to be the death of me,_ Felix thinks, idly tracing his life line.

(But what will it be? Will his own loneliness be the death of him? Or maybe his unrequited feelings drilling a void into his chest?)


	6. Chapter 6

It’s like Sylvain transferring over begins the start of something terrible. The monastery becomes wrapped up in all sorts of different trouble, sending out soldiers and even students to fight bandits and mysterious enemies. Students go missing. Threats are made against the church. All the while, Garreg Mach attempts to maintain some sense of normalcy by having monastery-wide events.

Felix hasn’t seen Sylvain around very often. Sylvain had said that transferring classes wasn’t a big deal, but to Felix, it feels like Sylvain’s disappeared from the face of the planet. It’s like the only way he can tell that Sylvain still attends Garreg Mach is through the gossip about their resident heartbreaker and by seeing him at the academy events.

It always hurts to see Sylvain sitting in the Black Eagle section at events, fighting for them, cheering them on. Meanwhile, Felix watches as Dimitri acknowledges Sylvain distantly, like he’s greeting a distant family friend, polite but awkward and almost scornful; as Ingrid scorns Sylvain under her breath, sounding the most exasperated with him that she’s been in a while; as even Dedue treats Sylvain coldly, only greeting him if Dimitri gently implores him to.

Yet, Felix, though he is still angry that Sylvain abandoned them all, can’t bring himself to hate Sylvain entirely. Not when Sylvain still smiles so brightly at him from across the room, still waves at him or claps him on the shoulder in the hallways when they pass each other, still promises to meet up with him when he has time. It’s almost as if nothing happened between them, almost as if Felix hadn’t blown up at Sylvain. Almost like Sylvain is trying to patch over that argument nonchalantly.

Felix wonders if he treats Ingrid and the boar prince the same way too.

At the mock battle, Felix concentrates on defeating his peers, but when his eyes wander over to Sylvain, he can’t help the frustration and pain that course through his veins. Sylvain looks so brilliant atop his horse, proudly trading banter with his new friends at the Black Eagle House. He looks stronger, his shoulders broader. Has he been training more? Is that just the armor? His eyes playing tricks on him due to the distance?

For a split second, Sylvain’s eyes lock onto Felix’s from across the field. Sylvain’s grin falters, and he gives Felix a conflicted look.

It’s been a while since they’ve spent time together, but Felix can still read what’s on his mind. _Looks like we’re going up against each other, huh, Felix. No hard feelings!_

…or something like that.

Felix clicks his tongue and turns his head away. He doesn’t want to see that pitiful look on Sylvain’s face when Sylvain’s the entire reason that they were fighting against one another instead of at each other’s sides. But when Felix dares to peek back at Sylvain, Sylvain isn’t looking anymore, distracted by Caspar who is attempting to rally his class with shouts that even the Blue Lions and Golden Deer can hear from their side of the battlefield.

When the battle begins, Felix does his best to focus. He steadies his sword and puts his all into fighting. He takes down a good number of students from other houses, but in the end, he’s sloppy. He’s not weak. He’s simply not at his best. A few arrows from the terrified Bernadetta at the ballista and a couple blasts of magic from Dorothea, and he falls to his knees, sinking the blade of his sparring sword into the ground with a curse.

Perhaps the fact that he’s so distracted, fixated on his friend—his former friend?—is how the Black Eagles claim the victory that day. Had Felix been able to keep his selfish, stupidly sentimental eyes off of Sylvain, perhaps he would have been able to dodge those attacks and retaliate against Dorothea. Perhaps he would have been able to bring victory to the Lions.

From then, things only grow more and more dire. Traitors are unearthed. Civilians are murdered. Knights are murdered. The monastery becomes a tense place, filled with shifting eyes and whispers of conspiracy. Even Felix feels himself tense up, watching for suspicious movements.

He wonders how Sylvain is taking this, if he’s keeping an eye out and keeping himself safe. He wonders if Sylvain worries about him as much as he worries about Sylvain.

And a part of him wonders if Sylvain is involved in any of this in any way, as if searching for a true reason to hate him. A true reason to want to set aside his feelings permanently.

Even so, Garreg Mach’s Ethereal Moon ball stops for no one.

The ball is noisy.

The live musical performance reverberates down the halls, so loud that it feels like Felix can feel the steady beat of the waltz in his bones. The clicks of dress shoes and ballroom shoes against the polished floors fill the air to the beat of the music like a metronome, accompanied by the laughter and chatter of cheerful students. Cups of non-alcoholic juice are clinked together; utensils against plates clatter.

It’s the perfect place for Felix to escape his busy thoughts and all of his conflicting feelings, but it’s the worst place for him to be, knowing that one of his classmates is going to prompt him to come out onto the dancefloor and make a fool of himself.

Felix mostly spends his time tucked away in the walls of the room, watching with his arms crossed as his friends all have fun. Annette and Mercedes spend all night, dancing and singing with each other, making new friends and dancing with them too. Ashe and Dedue spend time dancing too, though Felix wishes they’d stop giving each other that odd look and just ask one another to dance already. Suitors come for Ingrid’s hand in quite a few dances too.

Even the boar prince is dancing and smiling like he’s having the time of his life, though Felix can still see right through that shoddy mask of his. Felix can see right through the calm and cool façade, through the true nervousness and fatigue, straight to the crazed demon that lurks beneath.

Ingrid occasionally comes to check up on him when there isn’t someone asking her for a dance, though Felix has a suspicion that her ulterior motive lies in the fact that Felix is standing by the refreshments table. Her cheeks flushed and a small smile on her face, she tugs gently at Felix’s arm, though he yanks away.

“It wouldn’t kill you to come and dance,” Ingrid prompts him. “Even I’m doing it. And I don’t really like to dress up.” At the flat look he gives her, she only shrugs. “Suit yourself. But I just think that you should take advantage of this one night to really stop stressing about everything going on.”

When a well-dressed noble comes by and asks her for a dance, Ingrid shyly accepts, looking over at Felix as if to say, _you could be doing this too!_

At that point, Felix thinks he’s been there for too long. He pushes past the crowds of students dancing and leaves the stuffy room. He wanders down the winding corridors, dodging other students. He thinks he’s ready to tuck in for the night. With everyone so tired from the ball the next morning, the training hall will be nice and empty for him if he gets up at the time he usually does.

He climbs up the dormitory stairs and lets out a sigh of relief when he finds that a few of the windows are popped open. Briefly, he stops at a window and rests his forearms on the windowsill. The fresh, winter air gently kissing his flushed skin, combing through his hair, feels great.

Whose idea was it to have the students dress in such thick, dark formalwear when there was going to be so many people and so much movement?

He takes in a deep breath. He hadn’t truly realized how tense he was about being there until he came here. All of that stimulation—those flashy, gold ornaments, the resounding music and all that sound in the background, the heat of being around so many people and having to stand around—really just distracted him from all his worries.

Felix stares out the window. Not many students are out, as many are still at the party or arranging a meeting at the Goddess Tower, so the students he sees are wandering back to their dorms, laughing loudly with their friends. Some spot him staring, and a few wave, as if the good mood from the ball urged them too. Felix doesn’t wave back, quietly watching them.

He should get back to his own dorm too.

But when he turns and starts walking back towards his room, he freezes in his tracks. There’s something lying motionlessly on the floor in front of his door.

It’s dark in their hallway, even with the little candles lining the walls, but the full moon’s light pours in through the windows and illuminates the figure at his door. Someone curled on their side with a bottle in his hand. Long legs, broad shoulders, fiery red hair.

In that moment, as Felix realizes who’s lying in front of his door, all the terrible events that have happened over the months flash in Felix’s mind. Assassination attempts, kidnappings, murder. The speculations and tensions between the student body, the fact that they’re all capable of taking lives— _Sylvain’s short life line._

Felix’s heart sinks, and his vision shakes. He closes the distance between them quickly, his terrified breaths punching his lungs.

“Sylvain.” He can’t keep the urgency out of his voice. He gives Sylvain a quick onceover, but once he checks Sylvain’s pulse and finds Sylvain hasn’t been hurt anywhere, he shakes Sylvain desperately. “Sylvain! Wake up. Now! _Sylvain!_ ”

Felix only calms down when Sylvain’s eyelashes flutter, his face scrunching up. Sylvain gives a small grunt as he groggily sits up. He wipes his eyes and looks around.

“You were just sleeping?” Felix sighs long-sufferingly, though he can’t help but to admit there is some relief to see that Sylvain isn’t injured anywhere. His heartrate slowly, _slowly_ comes down back to normal. “Get up already.”

Sylvain, pointedly, doesn’t get up, instead just giving Felix a stupid smile. “Felix!” Though he’s said one word, Felix can hear the slightest slur to his speech, one that could go entirely unnoticed by those who are less familiar with Sylvain.

Felix flinches a little as Sylvain practically falls forward on him, wrapping his arms around him. Sylvain mumbles something incoherently and clings to him as Felix blinks in shock, heat flooding his body. A wave of self-hatred and frustration follow closely with that heat.

It’s only then, when Sylvain is pressed up against him, that he smells the wine on Sylvain’s breath, on his clothes. It’s nowhere as strong as the alcohol smell that sometimes emanates from Manuela’s quarters, but it’s certainly familiar.

 _Too_ familiar, actually. Felix is pretty sure that he has an idea of where Sylvain found that bottle he’s currently nursing.

“Get off me. You’ve been drinking.” Felix pries Sylvain off of himself. A selfish part of him wishes that Sylvain would cling to him again, to shield Felix from the cold winter air drifting in from the windows. But Sylvain doesn’t move to do it again.

Felix snatches the bottle from Sylvain’s hands. As he suspected, it’s the same brand that Manuela has lying around the clinic. Sylvain must have broken into her secret stash somehow.

“Only a little,” Sylvain replies with a cheeky grin that most definitely implies that it’s _not_ just a little. “Want some?”

Felix sighs. “I’m not going to get caught with this stuff.” He hands the bottle back to Sylvain. “Go to your room and drink it yourself.”

Sylvain cranes his neck in the direction of his room, just a mere two rooms down, and then looks back at Felix. “That’s so far, though.” He waits a beat. “And lonely,” he adds.

“Then ask someone else to come drink with you.”

Sylvain visibly wilts. “But I wanted to spend some time with you. I missed you, Fe.”

Felix steadies the way his heartrate spikes and sighs. “Don’t try to twist this. _You’re_ the one who decided to leave the Blue Lions, and that’s why we hardly see each other anymore.” Felix reaches for his doorknob. “Now go away.”

Sylvain reaches up and gently wraps his hand around Felix’s wrist. “C’mon, Fe. Let’s just hang out again. Like we used to all the time. I have time tonight!”

Felix just offers a flat look. “Tonight,” Felix repeats. “The night of the ball. And the night where everyone’s meeting at the Goddess Tower. You, Sylvain Jose Gautier, the most infamous skirt-chasing dimwit of Garreg Mach, have time to spend with me. A man. Tonight.”

“Yeah!” Sylvain laughs. “It’s kind of a long story. Got some time to spare?”

Felix knows that he should just turn that doorknob and dip inside, locking Sylvain out and leaving him on his own. It’d be so much easier. Sylvain is a recipe for trouble. Sylvain’s a Black Eagle now, a class rival, a traitor. A traitor who holds what’s left of Felix’s heart in his hands, even if he doesn’t know it.

And plus, he’s drunk, so he’s going to be annoying.

But Felix just sighs, opens the door to his dorm, and holds it open, a terse nod of his head gesturing at Sylvain to come in.

Sylvain perks up and stumbles in, bringing with him the wine. Felix shuts the door behind him and strikes a match to light his lanterns and candles. The moonlight coming in through the window should be enough, but Felix wants the warmth that comes with the lantern and the candles.

Sylvain makes himself cozy at Felix’s desk, flopping into the wooden chair. “It’s been so long since I’ve been in here,” he muses, playing with the assortment of feather pens at Felix’s desk. “You haven’t changed anything.”

“Why would I?” Felix sits at the edge of his bed. “It’s fine just the way it is.”

Sylvain just chuckles softly.

Spending time with Sylvain after all this time feels strange. There’s a childish glee underneath his skin, ranting and raving that Sylvain is back, but there is a more mature wariness holding back the unfiltered happiness. Felix isn’t sure what to expect of Sylvain now. All he has of Sylvain are memories. Memories of their childhood, of the times they spent together before he transferred.

Like those times when they would spend time at the lake, often in the dead of night after Felix put Sylvain through a rigorous training session. Sylvain would be stretched out comfortably along the wooden pier, facing up at the night sky while Felix sat at the edge of the pier, swinging his legs lightly above the surface of the water.

Sylvain would complain about how rough training that night was; Felix would quip back that he’s just trying to help Sylvain make up for all the time he wasted flirting during class.

“Aiming for my face is a bit much, don’t you think, Fe?” Sylvain would say, throwing an arm over his eyes, as if to block out the bright moonlight. “What if you hit me? You’d leave a mark, and the ladies would be upset with you, you know!”

“Let them be mad,” Felix would grouse back with a frustrated sigh at the mention of girls _again_. “You weren’t actually trying until I started aiming for your face, you egotist.”

“Hey, I did well when I actually tried though, didn’t I?”

“…You’ve improved, somewhat.”

Sylvain would just laugh and come join him at the edge of the pier, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Sylvain’s skin would still be hot and a bit sweaty from when they sparred, but Felix wouldn’t mind. Felix would look over at Sylvain as he looked out at the lake, would admire the pale moonlight against his bright hair, would try to commit every little freckle to memory.

It was as if some part of Felix knew that they wouldn’t get to spend time together in the future.

Just like all those times before, time flies by. Sylvain spends much of his time recounting his life lately, whether it’s anecdotes about adjusting to the Black Eagles or stories about girls or the new professor. Just like all those times before, Felix listens intently, offering a few replies from time to time. He has always been more of a better listener than a storyteller.

Just like all those times before, the pale moonlight sneaks in through the window and gently paints Sylvain in what looks like almost a holy light. The warm light from the candles around Felix’s room makes him glow too. He’s a mish-mash of cold and warm light, like fire and snow, but in the end, he looks so elegant, so mesmerizing, so _ethereal._ And when he offers Felix a small half-smile, a shy sort of smile, he only looks so much more otherworldly, so radiant, so _soft._

Felix hasn’t been paying attention to the conversation. As he reminisced, he watched Sylvain prattle on and on about something, listening to his smooth voice weave him a story through incomprehensible gibberish.

“Hey, are you paying attention? You’ve just been staring.” Sylvain chuckles, but Felix can detect the discomfort in his voice. “Is there something on my face?”

“No.” Felix shuts his eyes. Oh, how the good times never last—it’s cruel.

Perhaps he should have told Sylvain how he felt when he stood a better chance back then. Back when the silences between Felix and Sylvain weren’t so thick and unbearable as they’ve started to feel since Sylvain transferred out. That way, if Sylvain grew to abhor Felix by learning about this terrible secret he held, his transfer to the Black Eagle House would be understandable and welcomed. They could cut ties and never have to worry about one another again, and Felix could finally move on from this.

“The wine,” Felix says, fighting the pain throbbing in his chest—the regret, the longing, the frustration. “Where’d you get the wine?”

“Oh, you were thinking about the wine?” Sylvain hums. “There was this girl who knew where Manuela stored her drinks, and we broke in and took some.” He speaks as if he isn’t breaking one of the monastery’s biggest rules relating to alcohol consumption and possession, as if he’s talking about something mundane like homework—but strangely enough, he doesn’t particularly sound proud of it. Sylvain holds the bottle out to Felix. “Want to try some?”

Felix stares at it.

“It’s not as bad as you think.” As if to prove a point, Sylvain pops the cork on the bottle and takes a swig. Felix’s eyes follow as wine sloshes up the bottle, into Sylvain’s mouth. He watches as Sylvain swallows the wine, a little bit of the wine dribbling down his chin. Then, Sylvain wipes his mouth with his sleeve and holds out the bottle.

Felix succumbs. He slowly takes it, ignoring the way that Sylvain laughs at him, and takes a swig. The mouth of the bottle is still a little warm from Sylvain’s lips, and if Felix focuses hard, he swears he can taste something sweeter in the bitingly sour wine—the taste of Sylvain’s lips.

And just like that, Sylvain takes the bottle back from him with a small smile.

“So? What do you think?”

Felix just makes a face and shakes his head.

Sylvain laughs again. “I was like that when I tried wine for the first time too. It’s an acquired taste, I guess.” He takes another, long sip and sets the bottle aside. “Hey, Felix.” A small pause. “Be honest with me. Do you guys miss me?”

Felix sighs. “Some of us do.”

“What, not all of you?” Sylvain pouts.

“You’ve been a thorn in Ingrid’s side for years, and you’re acting like having another class look after you doesn’t alleviate her stress.”

“Okay, fair.” He pauses. ‘Then what about you? D’ya miss me?”

_More than you would ever know._

“No. You’re annoying.”

“Ouch, Felix! That’s no way to talk to your old friend Sylvie.” When Felix gives him a dirty look, Sylvain wears a taunting grin, a smug one that Felix just wants to wipe from his face. “Not a fan of the nickname anymore?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Hey, I loved it! I still do!” Sylvain smiles. At this point, Felix realizes that Sylvain’s a lot drunker than he lets on.

His eyes look hazy, his face a touch flushed. His words are slurred more than before, his movements sluggish. It’s a wonder that he’s still awake, especially considering that he had fallen asleep right outside Felix’s door, possibly waiting for him to come.

“Hey, d’you know what else I love?” Sylvain asks, still wearing a dopey smile.

“What?”

For a moment, there’s a thick pause. The room is so silent between the two of them that they can hear the footsteps of Dimitri passing Felix’s room as he gets to his own bedroom. Felix shifts uncomfortably under Sylvain’s gaze. With that hazy, alcohol-induced look to his eyes, Felix can’t quite understand what Sylvain’s trying to convey, what he wants to say.

“Sylvain, _what_?” Felix prompts. “If you’re going to say something, then just hurry up and say it already.” His heart pounds faster when Sylvain leans in a little.

“You,” he rasps.

Felix hardly has time to process what Sylvain said before their lips crash together, like the breaking of a mighty wave against cliffside, like the fateful collision of two planets that have been caught in the dance of orbit around one another for centuries. Felix’s heart leaps up into his throat at the realization that the _man of his dreams_ is currently _kissing_ him, and before he can think twice, before he can form even a single rational thought, he cups Sylvain’s face in his hands and kisses back, with a pining built up over years and years.

In that moment, Felix can only think that he’s _happy_ for the first time in so long. The world around them is tearing at the seams, the blanket of normalcy ripping and revealing the danger lurking beneath. Glenn is dead, Mother is dead, and even Miklan is dead, leaving Sylvain a mess of unresolved issues—but in that moment, everything feels _okay._ Everything feels _possible_. Everything feels like it should.

Felix melts into the kiss, knowing that he’ll hate himself when it’s all over.

When they finally separate, they’re left breathless.

“Sylvain.” Felix’s voice is thin, as if it’s fading, as if Sylvain had taken his voice from him in that single kiss. He isn’t entirely sure what to say. All he knows is that the aftertaste of the kiss, the sour touch of the wine that they shared, tastes better when Sylvain on it—with his lips on Felix’s, with his tongue on Felix’s, with his name on Felix’s tongue.

Sylvain doesn’t hear him. He had immediately collapsed to the floor in a sleeping heap after they’d separated, wearing a stupid grin on his face. At first, Felix is a bit concerned, but seeing his chest so steadily rise and fall wipes the worry clear from his heart.

“Sylvain, wake up. We should… probably talk about this.”

No reply. He must really be out cold. What a seriously inconvenient time to fall asleep.

Felix sighs. He was hoping to hear more from Sylvain. He wants to desperately shut up the buzzing questions in his head, but even when Felix nudges Sylvain and shakes him, Sylvain refuses to wake up, snoring softly. Felix figures that he’ll get a chance to ask Sylvain about it in the morning, so he tucks away his worries and his thoughts.

Carrying Sylvain back to his room seems like a hassle, especially considering that Dimitri is in his room now. If Dimitri were to open the door at any time where Felix is lugging Sylvain back to his room, that would be quite troublesome. He’s sure they both reek of wine, and he doesn’t want to even imagine what kind of annoying thing Dimitri would say or do about that.

So Felix turns out all the lights in his room, tugs off Sylvain’s shoes, pulls him up into his bed, and lies him down. Felix changes into his nightclothes and joins Sylvain in the bed, pushing him over. The student beds were not made to accommodate two people, but if Felix pulls his legs up and sleeps on his side, he’s sure that he can accommodate Sylvain’s bigger frame.

It’s almost like they’re children again, sharing a bed again after spending time together. Typically, Felix was the first to fall asleep at their sleepovers, but in the rare times where Sylvain fell asleep before him, Felix remembers staring at Sylvain’s face. He remembers staring at those freckles, at his long lashes, at the tiny, faint scar on Sylvain’s forehead.

He finds himself doing the same now. Sylvain’s changed so much since they were kids, but with his expression relaxed like this, with the non-truths no longer bombarding Felix, he’s just about the same. His freckles are still there, marking Sylvain’s face the same way the stars mark the night sky; his lashes are still long, accentuating his pretty eyes and the arch of his eyebrows. And though Sylvain wears his tousled hair over his forehead, if Felix reaches forward and brushes the soft hair aside, he can see that the scar is there, just barely visible.

It’s comforting to have Sylvain so close again. It’s comforting to see that Sylvain hasn’t changed too much, even if he goes around touting his good looks and his reputation as a womanizer. It’s comforting to just _be_ with Sylvain again.

 _You’re right by my side,_ Felix thinks idly as he gently drifts to sleep, unable to stop himself from reaching out and gently setting his hand over Sylvain’s. He feels his body relax, feels that ever-present scowl on his face ease up. _Just like you promised to be. Just like I’d always hoped you’d be. Just like I hope you would be now._

But when he wakes up, Sylvain and the half-empty bottle of wine are gone.

And when Felix sees Sylvain again, he’s in the dining hall, chatting with some girls. When Sylvain spots Felix, he waves and smiles. As if nothing ever happened.

As if he didn’t make one of Felix’s greatest dreams come true the night prior and then immediately crush it beneath his boot hours later.

Felix bottles up his hurt, his frustration, his embarrassment, and he storms off to the training hall to hack away at the dummy until one of three things break: the dummy, the training sword, or Felix’s sinful hands.

In the end, he just ends up with a broken training dummy, a broken heart, and more bandages wrapped around the new blisters that formed on his hands.


End file.
